Gjalt Huppes

Leiden University | LEI · Institute of Environmental Sciences

To support product and technology choices toward a more sustainable future, diverse assessment methods are used, involving life cycle assessment (LCA). This raises the question of their predictive validity. Whereas, many studies focus on quantitative uncertainty, here the main aim is to address the complementary qualitative aspect of the LCA-relate...

How may exposure risks to SARS-CoV-2 be assessed quantitatively? The material metabolism approach of Industrial Ecology can be applied to the mass flows of these virions by their numbers, as a key step in the analysis of the current pandemic. Several transmission routes of SARS-2 from emission by a person to exposure of another person have been mod...

The latest 2018 IPCC report is crystal clear: global warming must remain below 1.5 C in order to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. For reaching that goal, now still rising emissions need to be reduced at an unprecedented rate to reach net negative values within the next three decades. It is self-evident that this cannot be done without strong and...

Low-carbon energy systems are more metal-intensive than traditional energy systems. Concerns have been expressed that this may hamper the transition to a low-carbon economy. We estimate the required extraction of Fe, Al, Cu, Ni, Cr, In, Nd, Dy, Li, Zn, and Pb until 2050 under several technology-specific low-carbon scenarios. Annual metal demand for...

A recent paper in The Anthropocene Review introduces an ‘Anthropocene equation’, which is assumed to model the Anthropocene. While welcoming mathematical treatment as such, we criticize the specific approach for being sloppy, wrong and empty. While the use of mathematics in the criticized paper suggests a high level of scientific rigor, it actually...

To attain a better understanding of the energy transition we have applied Agent Based Modelling (ABM) to Integrated Assessment Modelling (IAM) in an abstract model with which we developed a proof of concept model of society’s response to a changing climate and energy system. Although there is no doubt that large scale neoclassical IAMs have provide...

This study was conducted to investigate whether the environmental impact assessment of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) varies with different life cycle assessment (LCA) methods. A full-scale WWTP in China was investigated in this LCA analysis using a generic LCA method, CML, and a China-specific method, e-Balance. Specifically, environmental im...

The Paris climate goal requires unprecedented emission reduction, while CO2 concentrations are now rising faster than ever. Internally inconsistent instrumentation has developed on the go, not fit for deep reduction. Mainly national technology-specific instruments, for example, have made the EU pure cap-and-trade system superfluous and have fragmen...

This book comes timely after the Paris COP21 Agreement, which requires a follow up with novel instrumentation for the substantial tasks ahead. Against this background, this volume presents strategic lines of instrumentation for the future climate the EU, both for the short and the long term, closely related to energy policy and other policy domains...

In OECD countries, many overlapping energy and environmental policy instruments are targeting the various stakeholders in the electricity supply chain (producers, transmission and distribution companies and various consumers). Although synergies between different policy instruments exist, e.g. reducing acidification and climate change by reducing e...

In this study a scenario model is used to examine if foreseen technological developments are capable of reducing CO2 emissions in 2050 to a level consistent with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreements, which aim at maximizing the temperature rise to 2 °C compared to pre-industrial levels. The model is based on a d...

Energy-economy-environment models are fundamental in developing realistic cost-effective climate policy. However, such models by necessity are simplified based on assumptions which co-determine the outcomes of scenario modelling. Major assumptions relate to demographic and economic development, technology evolution and deployment and policy decisio...

Second generation bioenergy such as cellulosic bioethanol is expected to become commercially available in the near future. Large scale production of this bioenergy will require secure and continuous supplies of raw materials. One promising source is biomass residues that currently remain on the fields following harvest, a feedstock that does not co...

Reducing demand by increasing end-use energy efficiency on the demand side of energy systems may also have advantages in reducing fossil dependency and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on the supply side. This paper addresses interactions between energy supply- and demand-side policies, by estimating the impact of measures addressing end-use energy e...

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has developed into a major tool for sustainability decision support. Its relevance is yet to be judged in terms of the quality of the support it provides: does it give the information as required, or could it do a better job? This depends very much on the questions to be answered. The starting point was the application i...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to supply an open method for weighting different environmental impacts, open to basically different evaluation approaches and open to easy revisions. From the partial, diverse and conflicting weighing methods available, a most consistent and flexible meta-method is constructed, allowing for a transparent discuss...

Purpose While life cycle assessment (LCA) has standardized methods for assessing emission impacts, some comparable methods for the accounting or impact assessment of resource use exist, but are not as mature or standardized. This study contributes to the existing research by offering a comprehensive comparison of the similarities and differences of...

To date, numerous simplified Life Cycle Assessment methods and techniques have been developed to reduce complexities associated with practical application. However, these methods often identify critical elements according to subjective considerations. In this paper, we develop and apply a new type of Life Cycle Inventory method — Component Manufact...

This paper describes and analyses challenges for the further development of Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) and other LCA-related tools from a governance perspective, considering their application context in policy and business and the linkages between policy and science. It will be investigated how LCA can be further developed to make it more relevant f...

Ecological Modelling j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / e c o l m o d e l a b s t r a c t The term Anthropocene, which is used by many scientists to refer to the current era, reflects vari-ous environmental issues caused by anthropogenic activities. The energy flows and conversions in the anthroposphere...

a b s t r a c t The Anthropocene is the later part of the Holocene where human activity has become a major driver for global ecosystem development. The demand of natural resources, renewable and non-renewable, is a crucial aspect of environmental (un-) sustainability. When considering a societal transition scheme towards sustainability, bio-based o...

Carbon dioxide emission taxes taxes can be implemented indirectly, by charging the carbon entering the economy of a country, as through primary fossil production and imports, and refunding upon final storage, as in CCS, and exports. Such carbon tax system functions as a deposit system. Only what is lost under way, emitted, gets taxed. Such a system...

Biofuels are widely seen as substitutes for fossil fuels to offset the imminent decline of oil production and to mitigate the emergent increase in GHG emissions. This view is, however, based on too simple an analysis, focusing on only one piece in the whole mosaic of the complex biofuel techno-system, and such partial approaches may easily lead to...

The issue of municipal solid waste (MSW) management has been highlighted in China due to the continually increasing MSW volumes being generated and the limited capacity of waste treatment facilities. This article presents a quantitative eco-efficiency (E/E) analysis on MSW management in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation. A methodology for E/...

Resource depletion, climate change and environmental pollution are priority topics in international environmental policy. The use of renewable resources for energy production is an interesting alternative to fossil fuels. Lignocellulosic biomass as a feedstock to produce ethanol may replace petrol as a transport fuel. A comprehensive Life Cycle Ass...

Environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) has developed fast over the last three decades. Whereas LCA developed from merely energy analysis to a comprehensive environmental burden analysis in the 1970s, full-fledged life cycle impact assessment and life cycle costing models were introduced in the 1980s and 1990 s, and social-LCA and particularly co...

The rise of China to become world largest iron and steel producer and consumer since the late 1990s can be largely attributed to urbanization, with about 20% of China's steel output used by residential buildings, and about 50% for the construction sector as a whole. Previously, a dynamic material flow analysis (MFA) model was developed to analyze t...

Biorefinery, an example of a multiple products system, integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power and chemicals from biomass. This study focuses on technical design, economic and environmental analysis of a lignocellulosic feedstock (LCF) biorefinery producing ethanol, succinic acid, acetic acid and electricity. A...

Of all materials extracted from the earth's crust, the construction sector uses 50%, producing huge amounts of construction and demolition waste (CDW). In Beijing, presently 35 million metric tons per year (megatonnes/year [Mt/yr]) of CDW are generated. This amount is expected to grow significantly when the first round of mass buildings erected in...

The massive migration flows from rural to urban areas in China, combined with an expected decline in the total population over the next decades, leads to two important challenges for China's housing: the growth of its urban housing stock and the shrinkage of rural housing. The rural and urban housing systems in China were analyzed using a dynamic m...

There are many approaches to study the environmental and sustainability aspects of production and consumption. Some of these reside at the level of concepts, e.g., industrial ecology, design for environment, and cleaner production. Other approaches are based on the use of quantitative models, e.g., life cycle assessment, material flow accounting an...

Climate change and the wish to reduce the dependence on oil are the incentives for the development of alternative energy sources. The use of lignocellulosic biomass together with cellulosic processing technology provides opportunities to produce fuel ethanol with less competition with food and nature. Many studies on energy analysis and life cycle...

The shift from fossil resources to renewables for energy and materials production has been the driving force for research on energy analysis and environmental impact assessment of bio-based production. This study presents a detailed energy analysis of corn stover based ethanol production using advanced cellulosic technologies. The method used diffe...

Biofuel use seems to have certain environmental, energy and socioeconomic advantages versus fossil fuel consumption. The substitution of fossil fuels with biofuels can be a useful tool to fulfil the Spanish and European policy in relation to mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increase the security in energy supply. The continuous incr...

Background, aim, and scopeFacing the threat of oil depletion and climate change, a shift from fossil resources to renewables is ongoing to secure long-term low carbon energy supplies. In view of the carbon dioxide reduction targets agreed upon in the Kyoto protocol, bioethanol has become an attractive option for one energy application, as transport...

Brazil has always been the pioneer in the application of bioethanol as a main fuel for automobiles, hence environmental and economic analyses of the Brazilian ethanol industries are of crucial importance. This study presents a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) on gasoline and ethanol as fuels, and with two types of blends of gasoline with bio...

CALCAS is the EU 6th Framework Co-ordination Action with the objective of defining research lines and proposals of networking for innovation in Life-Cycle Analysis for Sustainability. This Blue Paper consists of two parts: I) a description of a framework and a road map for a Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis (LCSA) including the ISO standard LCA a...

This paper looks at the compatibility between technological improvements at the micro-level and sustainability at the macro-level. The two main approaches to prevent environmental degradation are technological improvement and economic degrowth. How do we establish the sustainability of technological options? LCA-type analysis of the technology syst...

This report is deliverable D12 of Work Package 8 of the CALCAS project. Through this report, CALCAS aims at identifying ways to promote and assist the incorporation of life cycle thinking in academic curricula and research. As there was no up-to-date assessment of the current development of life cycle thinking in European educational programs, rese...

The environmental impacts of municipal solid waste (MSW) management have been highlighted in China, due to the continually increasing amount of MSW being generated and the limited capacity of waste treatment facilities. Of particular interest is greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, aided by the Kyoto Mechanisms. China is an important case study for thi...

Background, aim, and scopeManagement of the medical waste produced in hospitals or health care facilities has raised concerns relating to public health, occupational safety, and the environment. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a decision-supporting tool in waste management practice; but relatively little research has been done on the evaluation of m...

What is the role of environmental policy instruments? In simplifi ed terms, environmental policy instruments can be said to link policy development and decision-making to policy implementation. Starting from policy development, the policy problem is translated into operational goals, the appropriate instruments are cho sen, and their implementation...

This paper quantifies the contribution of Portuguese energy policies for total and marginal abatement costs (MAC) for CO2 emissions for 2020. The TIMES_PT optimisation model was used to derive MAC curves from a set of policy scenarios including one or more of the following policies: ban on nuclear power; ban on new coal power plants without carbon...

This chapter discusses the time value of money as well as how discounting should be carried out so that the estimated life cycle cost is consistent with the methodology employed. Discounting will depend on the type of Life Cycle Costing (LCC) carried out as well as the dominant environmental impacts, and is an iterative procedure requiring a sensit...

The book focuses on environmental LCC but also analyzes conventional LCC and societal LCC, providing case studies for each. It presents the link between life cycle costing and life cycle assessment and then explores public, private, and societal options. The book also explains all components of the method using the cross-cutting example of a washin...

This book clarifies a number of methodological issues in Life Cycle Inventory modelling, as part of LCA. Some of these issues have been on the agenda for a long time, without coming to generally accepted solutions, and often not even to agreement on alternative approaches. Several of these subjects relate to the specific nature of LCA as a relative...

Eco-efficiency has been defined as a general goal of creating value while decreasing environmental impact. Leaving out the normative part of this concept, the empirical part refers to a ratio between environmental impact and economic cost or value. Two basic choices must be made in defining practical eco-efficiency: which variable is in the denomin...

SummaryA maximum abatement cost (MAC) method is proposed as a means of assessing preferential purchasing of products with multiple environmental effects. Using the MAC method, cost-effectiveness of the introduction of a product with less emissions of some substances than conventional products can be assessed. In the MAC method, the reduction of a p...

For developing product policy, insight into the environmental effects of products is required. But available life‐cycle assessment studies (LCAs) are hardly comparable between different products and do not cover total consumption. Input‐output analysis with environmental extensions (EEIOA) of full consumption is not available for the European Union...

Integrated product policy, according to the European Union, requires reliable data on the impact of consumer products along their life cycles. We argue that this necessarily requires the development of an information tool for hybrid analysis, combining aspects of life-cycle assessment and input-output analysis. A number of requirements in the devel...

In making practical decisions on technologies and products and related strategies and policies, all sustainability effects are involved, from global warming and income distribution to economic growth and habitat destruction. Judging the relative importance of these different effects, that is their evaluation, is unavoidable. Reality just is that co...

Cited By (since 1996): 3, Export Date: 7 May 2012, Source: Scopus, doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2006.12.002, Language of Original Document: English, Correspondence Address: Geldermann, J.; French-German Institute for Environmental Research (DFIU/IFARE), University of Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany; email: geldermann@wiwi.uni-goettingen.de, References: Eu...

This article presents the quantitative eco-efficiency method developed for prioritising environmental investments in NOGEPA, The Netherlands Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Association involving all major oil and gas producers in The Netherlands. They are committed to a high level of environmental improvement in a Covenant with Dutch central...

Weighting of environmental impacts is necessary to arrive at a single environmental indicator. One of the methods to weigh impacts, which has been operationalised for a number of impact categories in the Netherlands, is known as the shadow price method, using the highest acceptable costs for mitigation measures as a weighting factor. Up to now, no...

Eco-efficiency has long been a concept: the intention of reducing environmental impact while increasing environmental value. Its origins are with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. However, in a globalized world with sustained economic growth environmental degradation is threatening. Macro level requirements on sustainability s...

- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1065/lca2006.04.008 Goal, Scope and Background CML has contributed to the development of life cycle decision support tools, particularly Substance / Material Flow Analysis (SFA respectively MFA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Ever since these tools emerged there have been discussions on how these tools relate to each o...

Eco-efficiency is an instrument for sustainability analysis, indicating an empirical relation in economic activities between environmental cost or value and environmental impact. This empirical relation can be matched against normative considerations as to how much environmental quality or improvement society would like to offer in exchange for eco...

Goal and Scope This study compared two different approaches to general inventory data in LCA, one involving the process-based ETH 96 database and the other an environmentally extended Input-Output table for the US, referring to MIET (Missing Inventory Estimation Tool) 2.0. The purpose of the present paper is to highlight and explain some of the dif...

Methods for Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) compilation are reviewed and compared. In total, six methods are distinguished. They are LCI computation using process flow diagram; matrix expression of product system; input-output (IO) based LCI; and three different forms of hybrid analysis: the tiered hybrid analysis, the IO-based hybrid analysis, and the...

Are we running our of resources? Current levels of primary production are rising for most resources, because of increasing income and increasing population. If we take into account broader sustainability considerations, the question is which restrictions we have on resource use, adding system resilience and quality of life as boundary conditions. A...

Goal, Scope and Background In the recently published (Dutch) Handbook on LCA, economic allocation is advised as baseline method for most allocation situations in a detailed LCA. Although the Handbook on LCA aimed to provide a ‘cookbook’ with operational guidelines for conducting each step of an LCA, this was not completely achieved for the allocati...

Many research efforts aim at an extension of life‐cycle assessment (LCA) in order to increase its spatial or temporal detail or to enlarge its scope. This is an important contribution to industrial ecology as a scientific discipline, but from the application viewpoint other options are available to obtain more detailed information, or to obtain inf...

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a method for evaluating the environmental impacts of products holistically, including direct and supply chain impacts. The current LCA methodologies and the standards by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) impose practical difficulties for drawing system boundaries; decisions on inclusion or exclu...

Persistent polar pollutants (P3) are difficult to degrade in standard waste water treatment plants. As a result, they end up in the effluent and are emitted to the surface water. In some areas, this problem is aggravated through "closed loop recycling", causing concentrations of P3 in surface water to build up over time. This could cause violation...

Normalisation provides a measure of the relative contribution from a product system to one or more environmental problems. Total yearly emissions for a reference year in a reference region are normally used to calculate normalisation figures. This paper provides up-to-date normalisation figures for the Netherlands in 1997/1998, Western Europe in 19...

Normalisation provides a measure of the relative contribution from a product system to one or more environmental problems. Total yearly emissions for a reference year in a reference region are normally used to calculate normalisation figures. This paper provides up-to-date normalisation figures for the Netherlands in 1997/1998, Western Europe in 19...

Linoleum is a floor covering consisting mainly of linseed oil, other vegetable oils, wood flour and limestone on a carrier of jute. Forbo-Krommenie B.V. commissioned the Centre of Environmental Science (CML) to carry out an Environmental Life Cycle Assessment for linoleum floors. The goal of this study was to assess the environmental performance of...

Intention, Goal, Scope, BackgroundInput-Output Analysis (IOA) has recently been introduced to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). In applying IOA to LCA studies, however, it is important to note that there are both advantages and disadvantages. ObjectivesThis paper aims to provide a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of adopting IOA...

http://elib.dlr.de/2522/

It all started with a new version of the environmental scheme drafted by Helias Udo de Haes and Erwin Lindeijer in November 2000 for use in the final phase of SETAC Europe's 2nd Working group on (life cycle) Impact Assessment (WIA-2). This group convened the day after the 8th LCA Case Studies Symposium in Brussels, Dezember 1, 2000. There was not e...